农村信用社是我国农村金融体系的主要力量，在服务乡村振兴、发展普惠金融、支持县域经济中扮演了不可或缺的重要角色。自2011年启动的新一轮农村信用社改革，旨在建立多层次、广覆盖、可持续的现代农村金融体系。在乡村振兴和农信改革的新的时代背景下，研究农村金融机构的效率评价问题，具有重要的学术价值和政策意义。本文以新一轮农村信用社改革为背景，考察农村信用社效率评价，多层次展开研究：首先详细论述本轮农村信用社改革的时代背景、政策目标，梳理改革的三大任务并提出典型事实；其次基于经济和社会双重视角评价农村金融机构效率。经济效率关注商业经营可持续性，从静态效率、动态生产率指数、效率的影响因素出发，研究省际间经营效率分布和省内经营效率变化；社会效率关注社会责任承担，创新构建了农村金融机构社会效率评价框架并进行测算，从地理、产权、投影等多个视角展开分析；最后研究了经济效率和社会效率的关系，考察了商业可持续和社会责任承担之间的兼容性问题。本文的主要结论为：1）从样本情况看，农信机构经济效率呈现出“东西高，中间低”的分布格局；就浙江省而言，股份制改革以来全系统农信行社经济效率和社会效率长期稳定在较高水平，各行社间效率差距不大，且改制期间农商行等三种产权形式的平均效率均保持稳定，不存在明显效率差异。2）净息差、拨备覆盖率与各省农信行社的经济效率显著正向关，浙江样本进一步显示，现阶段县域农信行社研发投入对经营效率尚不存在显著影响。3）农信机构通过发放更多支农支小贷款，在提升社会效率的同时，也承担了更高水平的风险、产出了更高水平的利润，最终整体表现为经济效率的提高。因此，农信机构的商业化经营和社会责任承担之间可以相互兼容。基于研究结论，本文提出以效率指标作为农信机构考核和改制的重要参考、回归本源坚持服务县域和支农支小的经营方向等政策建议。本文研究紧跟改革步伐，在时间跨度和样本范围上较以往深度推进，重点关注了农村信用社的社会效率以及经济效率与社会效率之间的关系，创新提出农村金融机构的社会效率研究框架及投入产出评价体系，拓展了金融机构效率评价的研究思路，具有一定的学术贡献与现实意义。
Rural credit cooperatives(RCCs) are the main part of China‘s rural financial system. They play an important role in Rural Revitalization Strategy, inclusive financing and rural economy. The rural credit cooperative shareholding reform since 2011 is the second wave of nationwide RCC reform, which aims to establish a multi-level, widely-covered and sustainable modern rural financial system. Under the new background of Rural Revitalization Strategy and rural credit cooperative shareholding reform, it is of great academic value and policy significance to study performance evaluation of rural financial institutions during the reform.This paper focuses on the reform and efficiency evaluation of rural credit cooperatives. Firstly, this essay introduces the shareholding reform from perspectives of history, policy and implementation scheme. The reform has three major tasks, which are shareholding reform, provincial rural credit union reform and risk absorption. Then typical facts about RCCs are put forward. Secondly, we study achievements of the reform from dual perspectives of economic efficiency and social efficiency. Economic efficiency pays attention to the sustainability of commercial operation. In this part, this paper calculates static and dynamic efficiency score, as well as finds influencing factors of efficiency. The research shows which province has the highest efficiency and how efficiency changes with time. Social efficiency pays attention to social responsibility. This essay constructs the evaluation framework of RCC’s social efficiency innovatively. Then analysis from perspectives of administrative division, pattern of ownership and projection is made. Lastly, the relationship between economic efficiency and social efficiency is studied, and the compatibility between business sustainability and social responsibility is proved.This essay comes to the conclusions as follows: 1) Based on sample provinces, RCC’s economic efficiency presents a distribution pattern of "high in the east and west, but low in the middle". As far as Zhejiang Province is concerned, whole system’s economic efficiency and social efficiency of rural credit cooperatives remain stable at a high level for a long time since 2011, and efficiency gap among banks is small. In addition, not only the average efficiency score of rural commercial bank, rural cooperative bank and rural credit cooperatives has remained stable during the reform, but also there is no obvious efficiency difference among the three kinds of banks. 2) Net interest margin and provision coverage ratio have a significant positive relationship with the economic efficiency, while the capital adequacy ratio is significantly negative. Zhejiang sample further shows that the R&D investment of rural credit cooperatives has no significant impact on economic efficiency at present. 3) By issuing more agricultural loans as well as small and micro enterprise loans, rural credit cooperatives not only improve social efficiency, but also bear a higher level of risks and produce a higher level of profits at the same time. The overall economic performance is improved ultimately. Therefore, the commercial operation and social responsibility of rural credit cooperatives can be compatible with each other. In the end, this paper puts forward policy-type proposals like taking economic efficiency and social efficiency as an important reference of performance appraisal, adhering to supporting agriculture and small businesses, etc. Our research keeps pace with the times and has longer time span and wider sample range. Besides, this paper focuses on social efficiency of rural credit cooperatives, puts forward a research framework innovatively, and studies the relationship between economic efficiency and social efficiency. Our study expands the research of efficiency evaluation of financial institutions, which has certain academic contributions and practical significance.
